Paradox Shift
by Slayzer
Summary: In the alternate timeline After Exodus. Cocoon's fall can not be stopped so the last surviving l'Cie and PSICOM try to save as many lives as they can and evacuate to Pulse. What kind of future awaits this world and the hero who brought it into being?
1. Chapter 1

FFXIII-2 is owed by Square Enix and I make not money off this unauthorized use of their intellectual property.

This is just the start to something I was thinking about as I was playing FFXIII-2. The thought of just how far we can go with alternate timelines came to me.

Paradox Shift

part one -The Death of hope-

By Slayzer.

AE00 (After Exodus Year Zero)

Cocoon had fallen and was shattered.

Inside Cocoon the sky and ground both seemed to crashed into each other before falling upward. Within that roar of earth and wind the dieing screams of millions of men, women and children were swallowed up before being silenced. All the while the soul trapped within Ragnarok looked on and wished to join them in death.

Then with in a flash, he woke, alive when so many others were not.

A mountain range was born out of the wreckage of Cocoon and the dust cloud was still choking the sky.

The sky.

He had never seen the sky, not the real one anyway. The steel gray clouds of ash and dust were cut threw with blades of sun light. One such beam of light fell on him and warmed his broken body. For this first time his skin felt the touch of true sunlight and it's warmth. With that feeling he remember he was alive and pain followed soon after.

His left arm felt numb and cold but burned with a sharp pain at the same time. From wrist to shoulder his whole left arm was crisscrossed with black jagged lines, almost like some twisted tattoo. The nexus of the whole thin was his left wrist where a red jewel was set into his skin like an unhealing wound.

The boy's arm would never heal as this was his penitence. That knowledge flowed into him the same way his focus had, with an image and some otherworldly understanding of it's meaning. Amnesia would have been a mercy as he was to remember what he had done and the millions he had killed with his twisted left hand as a painful reminder.

'Maybe it be better if I just stayed here and died.' he thought.

Thunder roared somewhere overhead and a memory played back in his mind. The memory of that woman he meet on a train.

That solider woman who was branded a l'Cie with him and the others. They had split up after escaping PISCOM and again when she abandoned him outside the Gapra Whitewoods. She had walked off into the woods so proud and so sure of herself and her skills. So sure that the boy wouldn't make through this even with her help so why slow herself down?

A vengeful smile creep up his lips as he remember the pathetic look on her face as she died. She made it to Palmupolum before him and charged the front gate. Snow and some dark haired woman he had never seen before tried to save her but all three of them were gunned down in dead end ally. If only they had someone who knew the city but they didn't so they died. While she and her fiends died like dogs in a gutter. He snuck in through the underground waterway and made it home without incident.

So much had happened that he had forgotten about that young pink haired solider. He couldn't help but wounder what was her name and why did she suddenly cross his mind. Perhaps he'd think more clearly without the thunder and Lightning crashing overhead.

Slowly and painfully the young boy pulled himself across the broken landscape. Hope had long died in him but the will to live was stronger then despair and guilt.

It may have been hours or it could have been days, in the dark gray haze time lost meaning but someone found him. A small PSICOM scout ship combing the area saw him and landed near by. The soldiers that disembarked looked at tired and wreaked as boy did but they still had fight in them.

The leader of the troop removed his helmet to get a better looked at the boy. "I can't believe it, a survivor." he then took note of the child's arm. "Wait your the l'Cie who helped hold Eden City as we evacuated? You are him aren't you, Hope Estheim?"

The boy gagged and spat blood then after fighting his gasping and hacking for air he broke out into a harsh joyless laughter. Tears ran down his dirty face and the healed scare that slashed cross his left cheek.

"No, I'm not hope. Not anymore and never again." he stopped laughing and looked up at the soldiers, the first living souls he had seen in who knows how long and if they were alive. "Are their any other survivors."

The PISCOM solider knelt down next to the boy. "Yes. There are many more survivors, millions of us in fact. But there will be fewer survivors if we don't work together and we need all the help we can get. I don't care what you call yourself now but we need you."

"My mother and father are they..." he couldn't bring himself to ask.

"Nora and Bartholomew Estheim are alive and well. They been helping out Lieutenant Colonels Jihl Nabaat and Yaag Rosch with the relocation effort. Your mom and dad have been waiting for us to find you. They never gave up on you even if your giving up on yourself."

The young boy smiled that pure, boyish and carefree smile that he thought he had lost with his soul. "Will anyone else be happy to see me? What do you even call the harbinger of death?"

The solider waved to the waiting airship. "Come on, were all still sorting out what happened and no one is blameless in this whole catastrophe." the solider put his helmet back on and then almost as an afterthought. "and the answer is Raven. If I had to name the harbinger of death then it would be a raven."

The sliver haired boy thought about it for a moment before joining the others and heading for the airship. "Then let me be the first to greet you as my new self. My name is Raven Estheim."

-End-

Anyway a lot of this story is drawing in my old inspiration from my fic Bloody, Bold and Resolute. There will be some major differences but the plot of an alternate Hope as the anti-hero still stands in both.

The main thing about this time line that I'm making and the one that's in the game is that inside of saving the wold with five strangers Hope meet on the train. Hope saves his family with the help of PISCOM but losses the Cocoon and a majority of the population.

Because Lightning and the others made different choices in this Timeline they all died and it fell to Hope to see their Focus through. So Hope working with Jihl and Yaag save as many people as they can as Cid and the Cavalry destroy Cocoon as the Fal'cie's new puppets. In the end Hope throws away his humanity to become Ragnarok and slay Orphan.

The end is a world were Hope save his family but our other heroes are gone.

So now what happens when this timeline's Raven Estheim has to deal with the Main timeline's heroes. (hint, it's not going to be a happy reunion)

Review and Tell me what you thought both what you liked and what I need to work on.


	2. Chapter 2

FFXIII-2 is owned by Square Enix.

A slight name change for Exodus to Paradox Shift. The new name is keep with what will be the main plot here and that's Shifting to the main 'canon' (Yuck that's a dirty word to me) plot line. Also the word exodus has a heavy biblical meaning that goes far beyond just the use and meaning of the word itself.

As for why I'm thinking of changing Hope's name to Raven. Well it would be hard to write something with two guys named Hope talking to each other.

Paradox Shift

by Slayzer

Part Two – The Slow Death of Loneliness-

After Exodus 10

The first City to be built on Pules was called Haven. A fleet of downed PISCOM airships made into makeshift housing still stands in what once was the city center. The building around them were large, faceless and utilitarian, all born out of a need for shelter then any thought of aesthetics. It wasn't until several years later when thoughts of design and how the city should look became relevant again. The newer and more well designed homes and building made Haven not just a city but a home to millions of people.

Yet six years ago when Hope moved out and into his own place he chose the utilitarian old city. He could have lived somewhere nicer but Nora was sure her son was just being difficult and stubborn.

Nora Estheim walked into her son's apartment and saw that his room was the usually bachelor pad disaster. Empty bottles of alcohol all over the place, every surface undusted and her son half-dressed laying in bed with a woman who was totally undressed. Nora had lost track of how many times she found Hope just like that, a self made human wreak.

She cleared her throat and got the attention of the two half asleep adults in the bed. Blonde woman was horrified to be seen as she was, Hope didn't give a damn.

"Shit, what are you doing here? If I knew you were going to bust in on me like this I wouldn't have given you a set of keys." Hope said fumbling for his pants that were on the floor.

"You gave me those keys so I could reach you in case of an emergency"

"And...?" Hope asked the wearying leaving him bit by bit.

"It's an emergency." Nora said somberly.

While this was going on the young woman in Hope's bed had started to dress herself. Nora gave her a withered glace of disapproval that only made her feel more exposed, as physical impossible as that was for her.

"Who's your friend?" Nora asked Hope as the beautiful young woman hurried to finish dressing herself.

"Right, Mom this is... …." Hope stopped and looked oddly at the woman who had just shared his bed with him. He didn't know who she was and really he couldn't careless what her name was. "... a woman."

"Yes, I can she that she is."

The nameless woman slapped Hope in the face and called him and asshole before storming out of the room. Nora's opinion of the woman rose after she slapped her son, even Nora thought he had deserved it.

Hope's apartment door slammed shut as his night lesion left him and his mother alone. "She was cute whatever her name was." Nora said happily.

Hope reached into his nightstand and pulled out a bottle of pills. "I don't care how cute she is..." Hope stopped to eat a handful multicolored pills like they were candy. "...she was about as fun as my couch."

Nora ignored her son's report on his partner's sexual performance and instead focus on what he was trying to distracted her from, the pain medications he was taking.

"Do you need to take that many pills?"

Hope raised his left, C'the like arm. "My arm hurts so I take some painkillers to help."

"But you've said your arms still hurts even with the pills. Hope if those pills aren't helping you then there hurting you and..."

Hope yelled at his mother before she could finish the thought. "I am not an addict!"

Nora backed away not out of fear or because her son's words hurt her but out of sadness. It was hard to see Hope like this, to carry the weight of his life and the world on his shoulders and be so unwilling to let anyone help him with the burden. To see that loneliness was killing her son but he was oblivious to it. "There are other ways to deal with pain then pills, alcohol and sex."

"Did they finally make a psychopharmaceutical drug for guilt." Hope pulled a shirt over his toned muscular chest. Almost ten years of fighting for his life had left Hope with a scared but fit body.

"Yes, it's called having a relationship with some who loves you."

Hope rolled his eyes. "Great I think I'm going to be sick."

Nora walked up to Hope and stopped him from leaving. "Damn it Hope how do you think seeing you like this makes me feel? Your happiness is important to me even if it's not important to you, even if you believe you don't have the right to happy after everything."

Hope put his arm on Nora's shoulder and looked her straight in the eye. "Mom I love to have you lecture me right now but I wasn't kidding about being sick. I think I'm going to vomit."

Hope brushed past Nora and made a for the bathroom. He dropped down onto the floor in front of his toilet and threw up a bellyful of stale alcohol and undissolved pills. Watching her son like this all Nora could think about was the boy he had been, that sweet, gentle but lonely boy she loved and worried about so much. What can a mother do when she helpless to stop her only son for self-destructing.

Nora did the only thing she could do at that moment.

She got a wet washcloth and knelt down next to her son.

Nora wiped Hope's face clean after he was done purging himself of the last nights excesses. She couldn't help but trace the rough skin of the scar that ran across Hope's left cheek as she washed his face. That was the scar Hope got in Hanging Edge when he picked up that gun Snow to fight PISCOM of her sake.

'If only I had stopped him.' Nora thought as she lamented her own weakness.

Hope suddenly grabbed Nora's hand as if he could read her mind. "Don't blame yourself mom. I got this scar protecting you and I'm proud of that." Hope leaned back away from the toilet and into the towel rack behind him. "I managed to save you and Dad and because of that you two were able to give me a beautiful little sister. I know how I must look to you but I don't regret the choices I've made or the lives I couldn't save."

"Then why do you do this to yourself?"

"I don't know. Really I don't but I dare you to find a someone in their twenty's that completely understands themselves."

Nora gave Hope a quick kiss on his forehead. "Even if don't understand you Hope you know I love you and that's never going to change. That goes for your Father and Sister as well. Now Hope when you find that spacial person that understands you like even you don't then hold on to them. Life is hard enough without choosing to go it alone."

Nora then got up and started for the door. "Jihl said she needs you at Yaschas Massif. The airship will be leaving in fifteen minutes."

"I'll be ready in ten." Hope said pulling himself off the bathroom floor.

Nora didn't doubt him. However much of mess Hope's personal life was when we needed him he was whatever was called for. A l'Cie, a pariah, a guardian, an avenging hero or even an instrument of revenge. What ever burden was place on Hope after become a l'Cie he wore that weight like a mantle of power. It was the only thing about her son that didn't worry Nora. In ten years there was nothing found on Pulse that Hope couldn't kill.

Just as Nora was about to walk out the door Hope called out to her. "Hey mom. It's been six years since I legally changed my name to Raven. Why can't you ever call me by that name instead of Hope?"

"Because to me you'll always be my Hope no matter what changes you go through."

Hope groaned dramatically from where he was on the floor. "Oh god, get out of here! Your going to make me sick again!"

Nora smiled as she left. No matter how tragic and cool a man tries to be his mother could always embarrass him with just few words. She like to think it kept him humble.

Once his mother was gone Hope reached into his medicine cabinet full of pill bottles and found a case hidden in the back. It had a syringe and needle set with a dose of some blue chemical.

Hope filled a shot up and went hunting for a good vain on his left arm. This drug was the best stuff he could get, even illegality ,and it would only just take the edge off the pain. Of course everything else about him would feel really good but that's not why he took it, it was just for the pain.

Hope looked up to bathroom mirror and saw his troubled reflection. The looked that said what his mind wasn't telling him, 'maybe I can't handle this and maybe I am an addict'

Need over came doubt and the needle bit into Hope's arm.

Yet before he could pump the drug into him the voice of a long dead woman echoed through his mind.

'You are still that weak?'

Hope could almost see her disproving face and ice blue eyes to go with her self-righteous tone of voice.

That was all it took and Hope pulled the needle out of his arm and threw the still full syringe into the sink were it shattered. He grabbed the edge of his sink and cracked his neck first to the left and then the right.

Looking up Hope smiled coldly at his reflection. "Come on Raven..."

Then he put his left fist through the mirror. The pain of the impact and cuts of glass were nothing to the ten years of torment his arm had been giving him.

"... it's Game Time!"

-end-

Why are there not many Nora fanfics? I thought she was awesome and five kinds of cool. But no she died yearly in the game and we got the generic-out-of-box-tough-girl Fang as our sixth party member. I don't mean to be so down on Fang but I've seen her character before and she brings nothing new to the role. (looking at Fang and Vanille I knew that, 1 they were from pulse and 2 they were going to die at the end.)

So anyway the star of this part was Nora and how in ten years her relationship with Hope as changed. Clearly he's not a boy anymore so she can't be the mother she was to him. Still even if Hope isn't Nora's little boy anymore he's still her son and she worries about him. I wanted to show a strained but not broken mother/adult son relationship.

Happy (early) Mother's Day!

As always please review and tell me what you thought.


End file.
